When I started my Nevada county highpoints project back in 1999, I had a vague idea that it would take ‘a few years’ to complete all seventeen counties in the Silver State. I had two in the books by the end of 1999: the state highpoint Boundary Peak, which I had climbed in 1995, and Charleston Peak, the highpoint of Clark County and a peak that had interested me for years, even prior to my awareness of it being a county highpoint (which I climbed in late 1999). My parents moved to Henderson in 1998, this giving me a somewhat convenient base of operations for my planned forays into the interior of the state. Between 2000 and 2002 I climbed twelve more county highpoints, giving me fourteen of seventeen and putting me within reach of the finish. But three years passed without a single new highpoint, before I visited two of the remaining three in 2005, leaving just one to go in order to complete the project. The last one to go: Ruby Dome, a gorgeous and challenging mountaintop in northeastern Nevada, overlooking the city of Elko and topping out all of Elko County. Upon my visits to the state in 2005 after I had climbed highpoint number sixteen, Ruby Dome immediately became a priority for 2006. I would necessarily have to wait at least until July for conditions (and my vacation time) to be right for a climb. I had tentatively opted for a mid-July attempt, partly out of anxiousness to have a go at the peak, but after some consideration decided to wait another month to allow the remnant snowfields to melt some more, and to bank on the usually good weather Nevada boasts in August. I was joined by Ben Knorr, a Salt Lake City-based climber who I knew through the County Highpointers club. We set Sunday, August 13th as our primary attempt date.

The Ruby Mountains are an extensive range, running about 75 miles long in the usual northeast-southwest orientation, and notable for a huge, glacier-carved canyon called Lamoille Canyon (pronounce the l’s, as I learned). Lamoille Canyon is a hugely popular destination for campers, hikers and in season, hunters. The range seems to have characteristics of the Basin-Range peaks of interior Nevada, and some of the more craggy peaks found north in Idaho and Montana. From a distance the low and mid slopes of the range are gently rounded, while the crown of the range is an amalgam of spires, points and craggy summits. Ruby Dome, the range highpoint, has gently-sloped sides on its east and west flanks, and a sheer north face due to the remnant glaciers. From below it stands intimidatingly high up in the sky, seemingly guarded by foreground ridges, peaks and foothills. Past climbers have mentioned a typical round-trip of about 7-12 hours, with up to 5,400 feet of gain needed to gain the top. On the other hand, assuming one picks a good route, the peak does not require technical skill other than a willingness to clamber up steep talus slopes and rock chutes. Mileage figures vary, but the consensus seems to be about 14 miles for the full journey. We knew we had a long day ahead of us!

I began the journey with a flight into Salt Lake City, where I talked the car rental guy into an upgrade to a nice Jeep Equinox for about half its usual price. I spent some time in the Salt Lake area getting supplies before setting out on the long journey on Interstate-80 across the Great Salt Lake Desert into Nevada and on into Elko. It was about 230 miles one way, and I killed some time at a neat little book store called the Blu Coyote talking to its owner about all things hockey. In the late afternoon I drove out on highway NV-227 south of Elko through the sprawling ‘development’ of Spring Valley. I followed Pleasant Valley Road to the gate and de-facto trailhead, but decided this wasn’;t a good spot to camp, so I drove back to the highway and on into Lamoille Canyon, where I found a nice (free) spot on some Forest Land near the Lamoille Camp. I surprised myself by falling sound asleep by 7 p.m. – I ended up awaking around 3 a.m. and full of energy. I decided to drive back to the gate on Pleasant Valley Road and wait for Ben. People who live in Spring Valley have access to this gate as part of their homeowner’s association deal, while the rest of the world can rent a key for a deposit – as long as it’s during a weekday during normal business hours. No such luck for me – arriving Saturday for a Sunday climb, I had no key. All the key does is shave off an extra 1.2 miles of hiking each way, and about 500 feet of gain. As I waited for Ben a few cars came up and went in – a firing and archery range is located here, and a few were out on scouting trips for later hunts. Ben finally rolled up around 5 a.m. local time, just as the sun was barely rising in the east, and by 5:30 we were ready for our long hike. The gate sits at 6,040 feet elevation; we would literally be climbing this mountain from its base to the top. 5,400 feet sounded like a lot of gain. I tried not to think about it too much.

The walk from the gate to the upper parking area and usual trailhead took us about 20 minutes and went quickly. The trailhead is marked by a new sign mentioning ‘Griswold Lake 3 Miles, Ruby Dome 4 miles’. Way too generous – we think they just measured the horizontal distance on the map. We walked past the sign, across a new wooden bridge that spanned a flowing creek, and took a right at a simple T junction. We were on our way! For the next three miles or so (and 2,800 feet of gain), we would follow this mostly-good trail up Hennen Canyon, paralleling Butterfield Creek. The lower trail is amid open brush and sage, and gains somewhat steeply as it sidehills up a rounded ridge. We passed a gate (presumably the National Forest boundary) and continued up the moderately steep trail. It entered into some forest cover, mostly aspens and a lot of grasses and shrubs fed by the creek, then alternated a bit through tree cover, open meadow, and occasional rocky bits. The trail itself was easy to follow and we made good time. At just above 8,000 feet, we encountered the first bits of significant rock bands. The trail was cairned in places, but occasionally we had to use our best judgment in keeping on route. By 8,800 feet we were essentially working entirely on rock, following cairns and common sense, working our way toward some trees and a noticeable shelf up on the headwall. In time we had come upon Griswold Lake, where we met up with a number of hikers breaking camp. They had hiked Ruby Dome the day before and gave us some suggestions. We had a nice chat, then hiked a few more feet to some rocky flat areas on the east side of Griswold Lake where we sat and had an extended breakfast break. It was just after 9 a.m. and we had been hiking for 3.5 hours, gaining 3,300 feet. Before I got too proud of this feat, I reminded myself there was still another 2,100 feet to go, and probably not over nice trail either. We spotted another couple come up to the lake and take refuge in a shaded area in the trees for a break.

After about 45 minutes Ben and I got moving again. We just started barreling up the steep talus shelves east of Griswold Lake, but this proved to be a bit dicey as many of these large blocks weren’t set solidly and most gave an uncomfortable hollow sound when being stepped on. We did manage to get ourselves onto a wide flat area (good camp site, we noted), and that’s when we saw the other couple, now ahead of us, sort of. They had followed a different route and when they saw us we were about 200 feet apart, striking up a conversation. We discovered we all had the same goal in mind so we decided to team up into a group of four. Our new teammates were two Elko locals: Kevin and his sister-in-law Sunshine. Neither had ever climbed their ‘home’ mountain before and were eager for the summit. Together we followed a sketchy use path up a steep slope and surmounted a saddle at about 10,140 feet, just north of a notable landmark, a tooth-like 10,428-foot peak sitting above this saddle, directly south. At this saddle we had an unobstructed view of Ruby Dome, now much closer, much more grand and considerably more beautiful than from way down below. We still had our work cut out for us!

We hiked toward the base of the 10,428 peak, and walked up an easy cleft between it and a rock bald. Shortly the route began a gentle decline into the broad upper reaches of Seitz Canyon. Ruby Dome’s massive north face – nearly sheer vertical – gave way to huge fields of giant talus and lingering snowbanks. Below these gave way to gentler tongues of talus blocks and intervening patches of grassy ground, complete with wildflowers. A stream flowed forth from the rocks – heavy enough so that we could hear it from our vantage, about 200 feet away. We walked to this stream and took a break, refilling water bottles while there. The reports we had in hand suggested to find some ramps or chutes or something that would lead us up directly from this basin and up onto a series of ledges, eventually leading up to the prominent west ridge of Ruby Dome’s summit. However, we didn’t see anything obvious and it seemed to us that proceeding generally straight, cutting across the bottom of Ruby Dome, was our best bet. We walked past this flowing stream, up some more talus ramps, and soon came upon a large, level snowfield. We were essentially dead center below Ruby’s summit, lording above us by a good thousand vertical feet.

We had reached a de facto decision to attempt Ruby’s summit from its steeper east ridge, so with that in mind we worked our way toward the east ridge and saddle. Coming off of Ruby Dome’s summit was an intervening rib of talus, set generally northeast of the summit, and leading all the way up to a prominent ‘point’ on the east ridge – a point where the slope moderated from steep to easy – at least what our eyes could tell us. Here, we seemed to generally split into three groups: Ben bounded up and went high up this talus rib, while Kevin and Sunshine stayed lower and took a more moderated approach to the saddle. I figured both ways were good, so I cut the difference and followed a route between the two. The talus here was steep and often, not set tightly. We had to take each step carefully and test each rock to be sure it wouldn’t tip or groan or slide under our weight. We convened again at a point about 200 feet below the ridge point, and about 100 feet above the saddle. Our elevation was about 11,100 feet. After another well-earned rest, we weren’t entirely sure what to do next other than to go up and hope for the best. We hiked a few more feet to attain the ridge itself, now able to look down the massive cliffs on its south side. Above us was the aforementioned ridge point – a narrow clump of randomly-placed talus, pointing into the sky like a finger. The summit was invisible from our vantage. I have to admit (and I think the others would agree) that even getting to this point looked pretty scary, and not a guarantee that there would be safe passage afterwards – even a cleft of five feet in the ridge would stop us in our tracks. So close to the summit, we were seriously concerned that we had run up a potential dead end. Only one way to find out…

We strung out in our usual pattern: Ben first, me second and Kevin and Sunshine not far behind. The final 60 vertical feet to this point was manageable, but class-3 scrambling all the way up with some portions of harrowing exposure. But, fortunately, the rocks here were rock solid and full of handholds, and the up-climbing went well, albeit slowly. Soon, Ben was very near the top of this point – while the rest of us stopped in our tracks for a report – our entire climb had come down to what Ben could see from this point to the top. Silence, while Ben did some quick scouting – I had one leg up on a rock ready to hoist myself up, but only if the report was positive. Shortly he came back with good news – he could see the summit close by and that the ridge was ‘narrow, but doable’. I surmounted this ridge point a few moments later, followed by Kevin and Sunshine.

There was the top – tantalizingly close, maybe a hundred vertical feet higher across a narrow catwalk with thousand-foot-plus drops on both sides … we most certainly took each step with the greatest deliberation. Only one obstacle remained: about halfway the ridge narrowed too narrowly (in our opinion) and we deemed it wiser to drop a bit onto a steep but safe rock slope and traverse this bit – maybe 30 horizontal feet where we dropped about 10 feet to get by. At this point Kevin and Sunshine got into the lead and it was Sunshine who had the honor of being the first to tag the 4-foot tall cairn on the summit, letting out a celebratory yay. Within moments the four of us were at the top. For all of us, a wonderful end to a grueling climb and for me, a completion of all seventeen Nevada county highpoints. I was thrilled, sure, but also very tired and kind of itching to get right back onto the talus to get down onto safer ground. We spent about 20 minutes on top, signing in and taking photos, picking out nearby summits in the Ruby Mountains and far-away peaks way off to the north. Elko laid out on the dun-colored desert floor, a jumble of lines and patches of green, a vertical mile below us. We noted with much irony that despite our challenges getting to the top of Ruby Dome, many of the nearby peaks – some just feet lower than Ruby Dome – had only steeper, more exposed 4th-and-5th class routes to their summits. We knew that we were fortunate Ruby Dome’s summit was actually reachable by mortal humans. Now to get down.

We dickered for awhile on top whether to walk down the gentle west ridge and follow the ledges down, as described in our reports, or to go down the way we came up. Ultimately we chose the latter – figuring at least we knew what to expect. I took the lead and we strung out again, each managing the very steep downclimb with care, slowly working our way down onto the fields of talus, opting to go lower than before then cut across. This worked well, although we had to zig-zag around the snowbanks and avoid cliffs that were invisible until we actually were feet from their edges. In less than an hour we were back to the level snowfield below Ruby Dome, where we took an extended food and water break and where we could actually sit and relax, knowing that the really nasty stuff was now behind us. We spent maybe 40 minutes here, laying down and enjoying the mid-day sun and the gorgeous profile of Ruby Dome’s unique summit ridge.

The hike to the 10,140-foot saddle was easy, and the downclimb to Griswold Lake went well, although we had to scoot and slither down some rock faces and clefts, all the while following a scant trail beaten in by previous hikers. In another hour we were at Griswold Lake, taking another good break. I was getting dehydrated, and it seemed no matter how much I drank, I was thirsty again immediately. It was uncomfortable, but I still had 2 liters of water on me, and with a flowing creek paralleling our route all the way down, water would always be at hand, so I didn’t worry too much. The thought of a cold Gatorade and later on, a beer, kept me motivated. Even a can of Milwaukee’s Best sounded good at this point!

From Griswold Lake the hike back to the trailhead took about two hours, with Ben and I hiking as a group and Kevin and Sunshine about five minutes behind us. The sun was behind some of the ridges giving us much welcome shade. Ben and I finally staggered back to the trailhead, where we both sat on the new footbridge over the creek. I laid down and snoozed, but soon Kevin and Sunshine were out, and they most very kindly gave us a ride down to our cars (they had a key and had parked at the higher trailhead). Back at the gate and our cars we bid them goodbye and changed into some dry clothes, then bid one another goodbye and thanks for a successful summit day and good teamwork. For us, it had been a thirteen-hour summit day, including all of our many breaks. Roughly, it was about 7.5 hours to the top and 4.5 down. I don’t care if it took me twenty hours, I felt thrilled to have summitted the grand Ruby Dome, and to have been accompanied by three great teammates! Thanks to Ben, Kevin and Sunshine.

As for me, I drove into Elko, stopping at the first Stop-n-rob I could find, and sucked down a green Gatorade. Wow that was good. I took a hotel at the main casino in Elko and treated myself to a prime rib sandwich and 12 hours of sleep. A long, tiring and amazing day!